Palm has seen better days. Following the departure of senior vice president of software, Michael Abbott (who landed at Twitter), the company has been offering packages to try and keep other executives around. That may not be working so well. Caitlin Spaan, Palm’s vice president of carrier marketing will be leaving the company shortly as well, we’ve learned.
This was likely not an easy decision to make for Spaan, she’s been with the company for 14 years. In fact, she may have been the last of the old school team in place before Jeff Hawkins (Palm founder), Donna Dubinsky (former Palm CEO), and Ed Colligan (also former Palm CEO) left to form Handspring (which merged with Palm in 2003).
Following a very bad earnings report in March, word started circulating that Palm was looking for a buyer. Yesterday, Financial Times reported that CEO Jon Rubenstein is committed to Palm surviving as an independent company but admitted that they’re open to other ideas. Ideas, including, letting other manufacturers make phones with Palm’s webOS software, and yes, looking at takeover bids.
Earlier today, Reuters reported that Lenovo is now the leading candidate to take over Palm. But the bad news continues, the same report had HTC dropping out of the acquisition race after reviewing Palm’s numbers.
Update: And as we’ve just heard, the latest rumors have Rubenstein possibly being out as well.
Palm, Inc. was a leading mobile products company, creating instinctive yet powerful mobile products that enabled people to better manage their lives on the go. The company’s products for consumers, mobile professionals and businesses included Palm® Treo™ and Centro™ smartphones and Palm handheld computers, as well as software, services and accessories. In July 2010, Palm was acquired by HP. The Palm brand was subsequently discontinued upon the introduction of webOS products under the HP brand.
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